Pitchfork also reports that the Strokes Near Completion of Third Album

Lollapalooza back on in ChicagoLet's hope they bring back Morrissey, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey, the Flaming Lips, the Pixies, Wilco, and Modest Mouse, who were supposed to be at last year's before they cancelled it. The Lollapalooza site.

Stream it: Quicktime (mov) | Windows (asx)Featuring simulataneous split screen shots as well as the illusion of within-t-shirt stop-motion animations, time elapsing from day to night, and sliding across the sidewalk. A pretty cool video for Hot Hot Heat's best song.

How-to: Configure your Winamp to use FreeDBDon't use CDDB. It's run by GraceNote, who is affiliated with the RIAA. Winamp sets CDDB as the database default and there is no easy way in versions of Winamp after 2.77 to change the setting unless you follow the steps outlined in the FAQ. The in_cdda.dll file that you need to do the tweaking is found here (link is down on the freedb site). Note: the mod works for me. Use it at your own risk, I won't troubleshoot for you or take responsibility for you screwing up your Winamp.

Fighting for our digital rightsEveryday, we bloggers post what is dear to us, what is interesting to our readers, or hopefully, a combination of both. We take it for granted that we have the ability in a legal sense to do what we do. In light of this, it is important to emphasize that there is hardly a more weighty news event that merits the attention of bloggers, blog readers, and all Internet users at large, than MGM vs. Grokster.

In the most important court case since the 1984 Supreme Court Sony Betamax case, the Supreme Court justices will hear MGM vs. Grokster today, which boils down to the issue of whether P2P companies can be held liable for infringement committed by users. Moreover, the decision will fundamentally affect what is permissible in the realm of file sharing, storage, publishing, distribution, etc.

The previous ruling by the 9th Circuit Court echoed the Betamax precedent, that P2P companies can't be held liable for infringement committed by users. However, the entertainment companies appealed the ruling and now, the Supreme Court will weigh in.

The ruling, expected by June 2005, will likely have far-reaching implications for other technologies. A P2P defeat would set a precedent facilitating the entertainment companies' ability to initiate crackdowns in the realm of many aspects/modes of file sharing, including websites, blogs, bulletin boards, and podcasting...and possibly other technologies, the EFF contends: Xerox machines, instant messaging, e-mail, VOIP, VCR, CD-Rs, and dual deck cassette recorders.

Record companies should perhaps ask why there is music piracy. When you price CDs above consumer demand at $15+, there will naturally be a gap: a small percentage of consumers with high demand or high disposable income will shell out the dough, but the majority of consumers will seek other means to obtain the music, legal or not. It is time for record companies, or, likely failing that, the artists themselves, to embrace the digital age and try to meet consumer demand where the listeners are.

CopyfightHas the latest about the case, including Justice Scalia asking how an inventor can know how an invention will be marketed.

CopyNightFrom their site: "CopyNight is a monthly gathering of people interested in ensuring freedom for artists and tinkerers, fostering innovation, and restoring the balance between the public interests and intellectual property rights holders for the benefit of all."The first meetings are tomorrow in Washington D.C., New York, Providence, Raleigh, Austin, L.A., San Francisco, and Seattle.

May 14, 2005 at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MDConfirmed bands:ColdplayFoo FightersInterpolThe BraveryGarbageLouis XIVBilly IdolNew York DollsStereophonicsEcho and the Bunnymenetc.Pretty strong indie/alternative lineup. $40. On sale starting Saturday, April 2.Strong work for a radio station that almost had no home.WHFS

What can I get for 10 dolla? Apparently, not the frikkin M.I.A. album from Best Buy. While they are an electronics fan's heaven, their CD selection can be quite a joke. I was pissed and I dropped my stack of CDs and DVDs and drove on over to Tower, where I got the M.I.A. and Doves albums, finally, and for only $21.98. Got the Black and White Town CD single for free as a bonus too!

Well, M.I.A. lives up to the hype. I cranked it up 11 in my P.O.S. Altima, trunk rattlin'. My computer stereo doesn't do justice to this album. Politics and polemics aside, it rocks hard and deftly (loudly!) melds grime, ragga, dancehall, electro, breakbeat, and hip-hop, throwing in riffs that vary in intensity from sensible pop to hardcore bass. M.I.A. does for girme what Missy Elliot does for hip-hop. Excellent performance and production from all involved. (Don't miss Pitchfork's informative grime primer. Also, more on grime at this interesting blog).

There's talk among some critics about how M.I.A. is exploiting the grime/street music sound. (There's an interesting discussion here. Btw, I disagree with his opinion that the net is creating havens for niche/extremist musical factions, although it certainly may have that tendency in a vacuum. However, I choose to remain open-minded and have become progressively more inclusive as I continue to sample and blog).

Fun fact: M.I.A. was gifted a Roland MC-505 groovebox from Justine Frischmann of Elastica after working with them on their tour documentary.

Telling quote: "My problem is that politics is the first thing that defines who I am. It's like, "You're just The Other, you're this thing. You have evil thoughts about the world." When I watch President Bush on the telly going, we need to fight the axis of evil and kill these terrorists by all means necessary, I just go, "Sh*t, poor Dad." In the 70s all he wanted to do was be a revolutionary like Bob Dylan. He had idealistic views about changing the world for the better and fighting for people who don't have a voice-- the same thing that Bob Dylan wanted to do. Now, he's like this straight-up, evil terrorist; a gunned masked man with a semi-automatic ready to take down and behead people."

It's hard to believe that this former Sri Lankan refugee and Tamil Tigers daughter is inauthentic in her approach or in her motives. I'd like to think that 'Arular' expands and builds upon the street scene since, although I'm not a grime/dancehall expert by any means, I hear many electronic influences that have emerged from outside the street scene, ranging from electro, to dub-n-bass, to tribal house. Perhaps it is this clever manipulation that refines M.I.A.'s sound just enough, making it amenable for the musical pallettes of MP3 blogs and fawning music critics out there. Whatever the case may be regarding the origins or motivations of M.I.A., I know that if I can't just sit back and enjoy groundbreaking music like this without ulterior considerations, I'd be bleary-eyed from reading essays and cultural dissertations instead of just listening to great music.

The great thing about grime is that it is edgy but easy to dance to, unlike its danceable, safe, and often dull progenitor, UK garage, which lacks that edge, and unlike UK d'n'b, which is danceable only to a small minority of us. Add to this edge M.I.A.'s keen political commentary (although incisive and inflammatory, it's buried behind the fat beats), and you have an incendiary audio device.

I think that M.I.A. may do for grime what Massive Attack, Tricky, and Neneh Cherry did for downtempo/trip-hop. I am not hyperbolizing when I say that 'Arular' often has the power and brilliance of 'Blue Lines' and 'Maxinquaye', although only time will tell if it has the staying power of a true classic.

Anyway, if you aren't ready to shell out the dough, maybe the M.I.A./Diplo mash-up that's been circulating since late 2004 will change your mind. On the XL Recordings site, they even encourage you to track down these white label tunes to convince you of how good M.I.A. really is. Fans of 'Galang', 'Amazon', and 'Sunshowers' will be missing out if they don't hear the LP versions of 'Bucky Done Gun', 'Fire Fire', and '10 Dollar'.

First look at Yahoo! 360Looks like Yahoo is doing something innovative with their new social networking service and are not just a johnny-come-lately. They will feature a way to integrate blogs, friends lists, photos, and other personally relevant content like movie reivews, restaurant reviews, and book lists which are dynamically updated along with the content of one's friends.

Along with Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan pioneered the development of house/garage music from New York in the 70s and 80s. His eclectic style fused soul, African and Carribean world, disco, new wave, punk, and hard rock, setting the stage for the transformation of disco into a more vibrant, soulful, and culturally inclusive form of party music, house.

Stream The Chemical Brothers - Believe (video)Hey voyeur, how does it feel to be stalked?! This is an entertaining and frightening music video about machines stalking man. The moral of the story: Don't take LSD if you work in a factory.

Crap, looks like stereogum beat me to this. That's what I get for sitting on this yesterday afternoon and waiting until Thursday to post. Oh well, better late than never.Stream the new Gorillaz tune (1st single off their new album): 'Feel Good Inc.'This track sounds like a mix of Prince, Beck, and De La Soul. The latter is appropriate because, if my ears don't deceive me [yep, I just looked it up], De La Soul actually does collaborate on this track! Man, if you liked 'Dirty Harry', you will get up wherever you are and start shaking it with this tune, guaranteed.

Gorillaz comic bookYou can actually 'flip' the flash animation like you're leafing through a book.

I wasn't too depressed when radio station WHFS was forced by the forces of evil at Clear Channel to adopt a Spanish music format, since I don't listen to the radio much anymore. However, if I run out of CDs or I'm riding shotgun in someone's car, the lack of WHFS as an option does leave me with an empty feeling, especially when I think of the many great years that WHFS did have and the two HFStivals I attended. Nothing against Spanish music, but please find another frequency.

Salon: Spoon interview excerptIs the Beatles' influence as huge in your music as it seems to be?It's huge. I'm a huge fan. There was a period when we were working on this record where [the Beatles'] "Revolver" was the thing I was listening to over and over again, and I would go to sleep with headphones on listening to "Revolver," But then there was a period where [Prince's] "1999" was the record I was listening to over and over again, and then the soundtrack to [Steven Soderbergh's 2002 film] "Solaris." People in the band didn't really get that one.

Do you always get so obsessed with records?I do go through periods of obsession with certain records.

Recently?I just got out of a period of obsession with [Prince's] "Around the World in a Day." And the Arcade Fire record, ["Funeral"]. It's a classic.

Sony picks up U.S. distribution rights to 2046My review of the film posted at the end of last year:2046 - This was the film I was most eagerly anticipating this year. It's Wong Kar-Wai's follow-up to 'In the Mood For Love', which was one of my favorite movies this decade. According to Wong, the idea for 2046 comes from the promise the Chinese government gave to the Hong Kong people: 50 years of no change in its political and economic systems after the 1997 handover by Great Britain. Chow (Tony Leung) is a writer whose novel describes a mysterious train that leaves for the year 2046, a year/place where people are said to revisit the past and recapture lost memories. This is mere speculation since no one has returned from 2046. Chow stays at the Oriental Hotel. He is a womanizer who relives his past affairs with his old neighbor's wife, Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung, playing the character from In the Mood for Love), a card shark by the same name (Gong Li), and a high class madam, Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi). His current neighbor, Jingwen (Faye Wong), is the daughter of the hotel's owner and she encourages him to write the novel. If you're confused, so was I. This film was rushed to Cannes, did not receive any awards, and was panned by many critics. I think there are some good ideas here but not enough for a coherent full-length feature film.

The Senate wants to water your vegetablesSorry, that's a terrible slang expression along neurosurgeons for keeping someone comatose or in a persistent vegetative state alive. Please get a living will or designate a power of attorney so this never happens to you or your loved one. Contrary to what the 'right' would have you believe, discontinuing a feeding tube in a person with PVS does not typically cause pain or hunger and is a painless, peaceful, natural, and dignified way to die (at least more dignified than dying with tubes, lines, and monitors on you 24/7).

NYT: Darren Aronofsky's 'The Fountain'The director of "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream" has something new for us: a time-traveling film about the quest for eternal life, starring Hugh Jackman. Sounds overly ambitious, even for a skilled director like Aronofsky.

With influences running the gamut from downtempo (i.e. Massive Attack), dreamy house (i.e. Air) to big beat, hip-hop, jazz, and rock, Bent have the versatility and talent to appeal to a wide variety of music listeners, especially those of us who love eclectic music. This is a groovy remix of one of the songs from their 2000 debut "Programmed to Love". IMHO, it's what all deep house should sound like, groovy bassline, uplifting piano and synths, and mysterious diva vocals/samples.

It seems that HDTV reveals glorious new detail on the screen, including some things we did not want to see, like how unpretty some of the 'pretty' people are. Make-up artists, you have your work cut out for you.

The Decemberists ponder leaving Kill Rock Stars for a major label"This is our last record for Kill Rock Stars, so I think we are going to be moving on. We’re going to talk to majors, but we’re also going to talk to a lot of indies as well, just because I don’t know if our music is meant for a major-label environment. I don’t know if we can be that big crossover indie-rock sensation that everyone’s been hoping for right now."

Coldplay - Live at Universal Amphitheatre 3-12-05 (KCRW-FM)Listen to it while you can and preview 5 potential tracks from their new album 'X&Y' (Square One, White Shadows, A Message, What If, Speed of Sound [first single]). Concert was live at the Universal Amphitheatre in LA as part of KCRW-FM's annual A Sounds Eclectic Evening concert. "Square One" might actually not be on the album (it's certainly an electronic departure for them), as Chris Martin was quoted as saying on BBC Radio One that it is a song "designed to be played live". Take that for what it's worth. Another rumor is that the recently circulating "Talk" may be a B-side rather than an album track (which I find hard to believe, because it is an excellent tune).Thanks to Stereogum for the heads-up.

Louis XIV - Finding Out True Love Is Blind (mov)Left-click (streaming mov). The band is standing in a gallery of moving pictures. The video is stylish but the editing is sloppy and rather annoying with alternating close-ups, medium shots, below eye-level shots, reverse angle shots, and tracking shots thrown together haphazardly. The part with the birds is cool though.

Preview Microsoft's new RSS feed readerClick on 'Show' on the top left. You can click 'Add Content' and see how your feed would look in their feed reader. It doesn't look like FeedBurner optimizes for it; but, then again, it's pre-beta Microsoft garbage we're talking about.

Beatallica is backSony has demonstrated that they will come after you for any semblance of a copyright violation when it comes to the Beatles, a fact that parody band Beatallica found out not too long ago. Thankfully, levelheaded analysis of the situation and productive dialogue was promoted by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and Metallica's attorney coming to the band's defense. Long story short, Sony has agreed to drop the case and beatallica.org should be online in the near future.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Just in time for the occasion: Traditional Irish Folk Bands. These are certainly an acquired taste. But by the time Thursday night rolls around, you will be singing along in drunken oblivion.Archive of Traditional Irish Folk BandsLink

This is a student art project with animated lego people and landscapes, as well as voices by Adam West (Batman), Mark Hamill (Joker), Courtney Thorne-Smith (Catwoman), and Dick Van Dyke (Commissioner)! The tone is reminiscent of the animated series and the story is brief but well-done.Batman: New Times (short)Link

Z-Trip's new album comes out 4/19/05. I respect Z-Trip because he's paid his dues as a turntablist before helping to foster the trendy mash-up scene. (Though Z-Trip asserts he is not a mash-up DJ, in this interesting article about mash-ups).He even says the following:

"It's sort of become the new karaoke, in my mind. You're at work, and someone's like, 'Hey, listen to what John did in Cubicle No. 4! It's pretty wacky: He did this thing with Christina Aguilera and the Strokes.' To me it's lost its appeal. And it's gone way, way out of the DJ realm."

In the meantime, check out these nice videos of Z-Trip in action. Yeah, I have permission to post these videos. Really, I do.

Adidas - Hello TomorrowThis imaginative ad is directed by Spike Jonze, acclaimed music video director and director of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. It features Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, his current girlfriend.

Jason, lead singer of Satellite Rides asked me to check out his band. This Canadian power pop / alternative band hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Some of it may sound like familiar alternative, but contributions from Charles Austin (Superfriendz), Graeme Campbell (Buck 65), and Andrew Glencross (Buck 65) add an extra dimension. They have a good start here with their debut EP. It's certainly better than most alternative on the radio nowadays (my reference point being the soporific alternative garbage radio available in the DC metro area; not that I listen to the radio anymore).

SpamalotDefine irony: Those who registered at the website for Monty Python's Spamalot, a Broadway musical, received a lot of spam when their information was pilfered by spammers.

New TOS for AIM includes 'No Privacy' clause "...by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy." Thanks to Slashdot for alerting us.

M.I.A. is really blowing up. Even friends of mine in NYC typically oblivious to the latest music are listening and raving. The Galang video features garish graffiti-esque art and anachronistic, clashing early 90s leisure attire.

The motherload of Tegan and Sara live and unreleased tracksTegan and Sara create an edgy blend of power pop, folk, and punk that is peppy and quirky despite many conventional musical elements and sometimes irritating, sometimes adrorable vocals. Be sure to check out their studio releases as well.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - Criterion CollectionRelease date: May 10. Droool. My gushing review from the end of 2004:Wes Anderson's genre-bending adventure is my favorite film of the year. Add action and pseudodocumentary to his usual mix of offbeat drama and tongue-in-cheek dark comedy, and you have a quirky, winning combination. The cast is strong throughout: Bill Murray brings a unique energy to the screen and imbues his character with the complexity and edginess necessary to drive this rather unconventional mid-life crisis story; Owen Wilson's deadpan delivery as Zissou's possible long lost son works well; Willem Dafoe is funny as a jealous senior team member; Anjelica Huston is a commanding presence in her smaller role, sometimes even stealing scenes from Murray; Cate Blanchett is lovely as a pregnant journalist whose incisive questioning and romantic impassability rub Zissou the wrong way; Jeff Goldblum is hilarious as Zissou's ambiguously bi archrival; and Seu Jorge is a great supporting cast member who helps segue scenes with fun Portugese renditions of David Bowie songs. Initially, the atmosphere may seem lighter than that of Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums. However, the humor and quirky plot do not mask the dark undercurrent or detract from the poignancy of the film's climax. Although the screenplay seems a little bit more disjointed than those co-written with Owen Wilson, the playful randomness is a welcome element in this adventure and I didn't feel too much was missing from Wilson's absence in the writing department. The set pieces and costumes are appropriately weird and wonderful and Wes Anderson is certainly in his element with effective use of color (i.e. the helicopter scene), music, editing, shot selection, CGI, and mise-en-scene (especially the intro, the entrance and exit of key characters, and the ending).

Jadakiss asks, "Since when has it become cool to get shot and not shoot back?" Themz fighting words. He raps over 50's beat from "Animal", a dis record aimed at Murder Inc. on 50's 2050: Before the Massacre mixtape.